The so-called Transparent Wood is an innovative material among the most promising on the world scene, with potential applications as a substitute for plastics and glass in various industrial sectors, such as construction, automotive, electronics, and interior design, with a potentially important role in sustainability.
To best develop the possibilities of this material, BM Plastic (Italy) participates in the European project AI-TranspWood (“AI-driven multiscale methodology to develop Transparent Wood as sustainable functional material”), which began on 1 January 2024 and will end on 31 December 2026. The project is funded by the European Commission under the call HORIZON-CL4-2023 -RESILIENCE-01-23 – “Computational models for the development of safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials”.
The project is managed by an international consortium of universities, research centers and companies, coordinated by VTT Technical Research Center of Finland Ltd and sees the participation of BM Plastic, together with Aalto University (Finland), KTH (Sweden), TU Wien (Austria), University of Sassari (Italy), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), AIMPLAS (Spain), Latvijas Finieris (Latvia), Inuru GMBH (Germany), Strane Innovation (France), and EPFL−CECAM (Switzerland, associate partner).
AI-TranspWood aims to create a multiscale methodology based on artificial intelligence (AI) for the design and production of new wood-based functional composites within the European Union's "Safe and Sustainable by Design" (SSbD) framework. The concept will be demonstrated precisely for transparent wood, developing an AI-supported SSbD framework to contribute to the European Green Deal, providing innovative sustainable materials and cost-effective tools for European industries, paving the way towards a green and sustainable transition. SSbD tools, together with new transparent wooden materials will increase the innovation capacity of SMEs and industry for future sustainable products.
With the help of AI tools and advanced experiments, multiscale models, from atomistic to continuum scale, will be developed for the production process and mechanics of transparent wood, allowing a virtual screening of possible biologically derived alternatives to chemicals and fossil origin necessary to produce transparent wood, using current solutions and technologies.
The constructed computational models will be shared openly within the European Environment for Scientific Software Installations
(EESSI); easy-to-use tools based on so-called surrogate models will also be available in the VTT Modeling Factory environment, together with tools for analyzing industrial LCA systems. In the forthcoming years, four industrial cases relating to transparent wood will be developed to be commercialized in the construction, automotive, electronics, and interior design sectors. The SSbD framework will guide the creation of transparent wood-based products, providing a competitive advantage to European manufacturers interested in introducing transparent wood composites to the EU market. It can considerably increase Europe's share in the global production of sustainable, transparent wood composites.
Within the framework of the project, BM Plastic will be involved mainly in the design and production of Demo cases and validation tests.